Journals / Turkish Journal of Mathematics / 2013 / Cilt: 37 - Sayı: 6

Magnetic field-induced stability of a specific configuration and the asymptotic behavior of minimizers in nematic liquid crystals

Pages
1001–1021
DOI
—

Abstract

We consider the stability of a specific nematic liquid crystal configuration under an applied magnetic field. We impose the strong anchoring condition, and we allow the boundary data to be nonconstant and also the applied field to be nonconstant. Thus, we shall extend the results of Lin and Pan in 2007. We show that for some specific configuration there exist 2 critical values Hn and Hsh of applied magnetic field. When the intensity of the magnetic field is smaller than Hn, the configuration of the energy is only a global minimizer, when the intensity is between Hn and Hsh, the configuration is not a global minimizer, but is weakly stable, and when the intensity is larger than Hsh, the configuration is not weakly stable. Moreover, we also examine the behavior of minimal values of energy and the asymptotic behavior of the global minimizer as the intensity tends to infinity.

Özet

We consider the stability of a specific nematic liquid crystal configuration under an applied magnetic field. We impose the strong anchoring condition, and we allow the boundary data to be nonconstant and also the applied field to be nonconstant. Thus, we shall extend the results of Lin and Pan in 2007. We show that for some specific configuration there exist 2 critical values Hn and Hsh of applied magnetic field. When the intensity of the magnetic field is smaller than Hn, the configuration of the energy is only a global minimizer, when the intensity is between Hn and Hsh, the configuration is not a global minimizer, but is weakly stable, and when the intensity is larger than Hsh, the configuration is not weakly stable. Moreover, we also examine the behavior of minimal values of energy and the asymptotic behavior of the global minimizer as the intensity tends to infinity.

Keywords: Magnetic field-induced stability, variational problem, nematic liquid crystal